Christmas has hit Bologna in full force a while ago, and there are many different decorations in the stores and the streets. Some which are very nice, and some that are fairly tacky. Like this indoor street with it's red trees. It's a bit of an irony that it's where the merchandise is at it's most expensive that the decorations are the least charming. This street only has stores like Gucci, Armani and Prada, but I guess money doesn't come with style.
This store in Via Pescherie Vecchie looks much nicer though. It's filled with different kinds of panetone (italian christmas cakes) with or without wrapping, cured hams, cheeses, salamis, fresh pasta, olive oils and so forth. You can have different selections gift wrapped and they are very, very nice. It's a great store for a foodie like myself. They even have a rather large and famous self service restaurant at the back which allways has a long line during lunch our. Basically because it's famous for being good and cheap. Five euroes for a plate of pasta and a glass of red wine (the novello they have is nice). Oh, and I particularly like the huge santa bag filled with parmesan cheese. Wouldn't mind that for christmas.
Oh, and another thing I wanted to show. There are lots of nice doorbells, knobs and knockers (no pun intended) in this city. This is the doorbell of my friends Annika and Adriana's house.
Close to where I live there is a portici (arcades?) leading up to the church of Santo Stefano. On Thursday I met my friend Adriana and Tanja near the end of this portici. Equipped with a plan of cooking fish, good spirits and tiredness we headed for the Coop close to me to do some shopping. After general uncertainty in front of the fresh fish counter in the store we eventually ended up with a meal of scallops(starter), monkfish, potatoesalad, baked zucchini and a simple white wine sauce.
As the evening progressed it became evident that they had a plan to head for Milan the very next day, and at one point Adriana asked me if I would like to join them. I surely did, though I took a moment to regret the choice as I was getting out of bed at 6:40 the next day. About three hours of sleep would have to last me untill 6:30 the next morning. The timespan speaks for itself. It was worth it.
After the meal we checked when the trains were leaving for Milan and I took this touching picture of the two friends in front of my computer.
Our first stop in Milan was the
dome, an impressive gothic structure. The gothic style is quite uncommon in Italy, but they apparently knew what they were doing when they built this. As the front of the dome was covered due to the reconstruction work in progress I didn't take any good pictures of the dome. I did take this picture of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II:
After a brief walk around the dome Adriana went to a pay phone to call her mom, and as breakfast had had to be skipped this morning due to the horrendous time of day we had to get up, it was Tanja's decision to torture us with such an early train, Tanja and I decided to have breakfast and then meet back up with Adriana afterwards. I asked the woman in the nearest news stand where to find a bakery nearby, and we were given accurat directions leading us to our breakfast. My meal is the one on the left. The brioche was really nice, but the gelly-like marmelade candy on the left was too sweet. Couldn't finish it. But I had to try it...
Adriana gave us a "squillo" (a single ring on the phone) to let us know she was ready and we met up in front of the dome where we took a few pictures of eachother. The two best I took were of Adriana taking pictures:
One can't really go to Milan without doing a bit of shopping, and seeing as we don't have H&M in Bologna(!) we went to the rather large one in Milano which is just around the corner from the dome. I bought some sunglasses, Tanja a belt and some hair bands and Adriana some earrings. One pair for her and one for her roommate Annika. The earrings were indeed very nice, and Adriana felt like putting them on instantly. The level of satisfaction really shows in her face in this picture:
In the same place Tanja had some fun with my camera. It seems she's a better photographer than me seeing as these are quite nice, though my expression is somewhat odd. Love the background, though.
Afterwards we visited the street with all the expensive stores like Prada, Gucci, Armani, Versace etc. And boy were they expensive. Later we headed for the botanical guarden, which was closed, and then we took a seat outside the opera La Scala to have lunch. Uncommonly enough the sandwiches had lots of mayonese and Adriana's even had ketchup. The second time I've experience poor food in Italy. My sandwich was ok, though. No ketchup there.
After lunch we visited an outlet store before we headed for the recommended
Castello Sforzesco We arrived there a litt before seven which was a good hour too late. Looking at the site of the place it seems like we missed out on something, but oh well. Perhaps a different time. This picture of the place from the outside doesn't really do the ambience any justice but it was the best I could do:
I had to do some tuning to my shoes at this point as it felt like I was getting a blister under my right foot so I sat down at the large fountain in front of the castle. While there I also got a nother picture of the two friends as they impatiently waited for me to finish:
